By Langston Hughes (1938)

LET AMERICA BE AMERICA AGAIN

by Langston Hughes (1938)

Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed -- Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek -- And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning everything for one's own greed!

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned That's made America the land it has become.

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home -- For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore, And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa's strand I came

To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me? The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we've dreamed And all the songs we've sung And all the hopes we've held And all the flags we've hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay -- Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again -- The land that never has been yet -- And yet must be--the land where every man is free. The land that's mine -- the poor man's, Indian's,

Negro's, ME -- Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose -- The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back our land again, America!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean --

Hungry yet today despite the dream. Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream In the Old World while still a serf of kings, Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath -- America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain -- All, all the stretch of these great green states --

And make America again!

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13 CHAPTER

Section 4

PRIMARY SOURCE from "When the Negro Was in Vogue"

by Langston Hughes

Poet Langston Hughes was one of the leading voices of the Harlem Renaissance. What different aspects of life in Harlem does Hughes capture in this excerpt from his autobiography?

T he 1920s were the years of Manhattan's black Renaissance. . . . White people began to come to Harlem in droves. For several years they packed the expensive Cotton Club on Lenox Avenue. But I was never there, because the Cotton Club was a Jim Crow club for gangsters and monied whites. They were not cordial to Negro patronage, unless you were a celebrity like Bojangles. So Harlem Negroes did not like the Cotton Club and never appreciated its Jim Crow policy in the very heart of their dark community. Nor did ordinary Negroes like the growing influx of whites toward Harlem after sundown, flooding the little cabarets and bars where formerly only colored people laughed and sang, and where now the strangers were given the best ringside tables to sit and stare at the Negro customers--like amusing animals in a zoo.

The Negroes said: "We can't go downtown and sit and stare at you in your clubs. You won't even let us in your clubs." But they didn't say it out loud--for Negroes are practically never rude to white people. So thousands of whites came to Harlem night after night, thinking the Negroes loved to have them there, and firmly believing that all Harlemites left their houses at sundown to sing and dance in cabarets, because most of the whites saw nothing but the cabarets, not the houses. . . .

It was a period when, at almost every Harlem upper-crust dance or party, one would be introduced to various distinguished white celebrities there as guests. It was a period when almost any Harlem Negro of any social importance at all would be likely to say casually: "As I was remarking the other day to Heywood--," meaning Heywood Broun. Or: "As I said to George--," referring to George Gershwin. It was a period when local and visiting royalty were not at all uncommon in

Harlem. And when the parties of A'Lelia Walker, the Negro heiress, were filled with guests whose names would turn any Nordic social climber green with envy. It was a period when Harold Jackman, a handsome young Harlem schoolteacher of modest means, calmly announced one day that he was sailing for the Riviera for a fortnight, to attend Princess Murat's yachting party. It was a period when Charleston preachers opened up shouting churches as sideshows for white tourists. It was a period when at least one charming colored chorus girl, amber enough to pass for a Latin American, was living in a penthouse, with all her bills paid by a gentleman whose name was banker's magic on Wall Street. It was a period when every season there was at least one hit play on Broadway acted by a Negro cast. And when books by Negro authors were being published with much greater frequency and much more publicity than ever before or since in history. It was a period when white writers wrote about Negroes more successfully (commercially speaking) than Negroes did about themselves. It was the period (God help us!) when Ethel Barrymore appeared in blackface in Scarlet Sister Mary! It was the period when the Negro was in vogue.

from Langston Hughes, The Big Sea: An Autobiography (New York: Hill & Wang, 1940).

Discussion Questions

1. How would you describe Harlem of the 1920s based on your reading of this excerpt?

2. Why do you think white America suddenly became fascinated by Harlem?

3. What is ironic about the situations described in this excerpt?

? McDougal Littell Inc. All rights reserved.

The Roaring Life of the 1920s 35

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